OpenNet
The OpenNet consortium (SingTel, SPH and Singapore Power Telemedia) were awarded Singapore's National Broadband Network passive network tender on 26 September 2008. OpenNet will directly own the fibre links of the proposal, which will reach 60% of the population by 2010 and 95% by 2012, with OpenNet assuming universal service obligations after 2013. This proposal creates an open access network with 4 distinct layers of ownership, to separate competitive interests from monopoly aspects of the network. SingTel, the national incumbent will transfer existing ducts, manholes and exchanges to be used in the NBN into an independent asset company by mid-2011 and sell down the stake of its entity by 2014. The fibre will belong to the OpenNet. The electronics will be offered to "operating companies" (OpCo licensees), who will operate the electronics - Layer 2 and 3 of the network, and the operating companies will be resold to retail providers. The Next Generation Nationwide Broadband Network (Next Gen NBN) is part of the Intelligent Nation 2015 or iN2015 blueprint for galvanizing Singapore into a sophisticated city with seamless high-speed connectivity. In 2014, almost all their places in Singapore have received fibre broadband. The service providers are: *M1 *MyRepublic *Nucleus Connect *SingTel *StarHub You will always be interested in how Singapore's OpenNet fibre optic cables works. What is the technology that runs the fibre-to-the-home network? How is it related to the fibre optic networks that are already common place in enterprise and campus environments? There isn’t much engineering information you can easily find, at least not from IDA and OpenNet themselves. However, with help from Google search, I’ve managed to find a variety of information that should interest network engineering people. The new network that we are talking about is Next Generation Nationwide Broadband Network (NGNBN), not the OpenNet Initiative that shows how websites were censored. Our NGNBN is made up of several layers: #The passive network layer, comprising the dark fibre that reaches into the customer premises (e.g. homes). #The active network layer, comprising the actual network switching. #The retail services layer, where service providers come in to sell customers network access. Network people like layering, installation of copper wires takes place within 4 years from 2009 to 2012. Two cores of single-mode fibre is terminated in a Termination Point (TP) in your home. The TP is a small box (125mm x 80mm x 20mm) with two SC connectors. (I know, to network engineering people, this sounds oversized, but the reason is that the TP box includes a reel to take up some excess length of fibre cable.) All the dark fibre cables are connected to the Main Offices respectively. *Tuas *Jurong West *Bukit Panjang *Ayer Rajah *Ang Mo Kio *Orchard (ComCentre) *City *East *Bedok *Tampines *Chiau Au Active network switches are only carried out at the central office wings. As you know, single-mode fibre can carry signals far enough. But, are you wondering, how is it possible to have so many fibre cores from customers individually terminate into a Central Office? The answer is the optical technology used - GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network). It unlocks the potential of having 100Mbps and above of their network subscription services. The splitting can happen much nearer towards the customer end, such as in the MDF room within the customer building, and is accomplished with passive optical splitters. At the Central Office end, the fibre core connects into an Optical Line Terminal (OLT). The customer-end will have a patch cord from a port on the TP to an Optical Network Terminal (ONT) or Optical Network Unit (ONU). The OLT at the Central Office is where the active network infrastructure begins. The optical distribution from Central Office to customer is entirely passive. The OLT and ONT (or ONU, but I’ll just omit mentioning ONU for the rest of this post) terminate their respective ends of the passive optical network. The OLT-ONT can provision a variety of native services, including IP-over-Ethernet. The OLT interfaces upstream with service providers’ network services, and presents those native services to the customer at the ONT. SMRT had also installed OpenNet since 2010, with their completion in 2011. Once done, most of the computers can enjoy 100Mbps and above of their internet access. Nucleus Connect is the first one to be typically awarded by IDA. SingTel is the one who started it since September 2010. The ONT in the customer premise is part of this layer too. Their IPv4 addresses are most similar to the bus stop 5-digit code. Retail Services Technically, retail services are typically available from October 2010, but Timothy Mok's family waited until Jurong East Modification Project (JEMP) had announced its opening date. This is the layer that provides customers all their services - Internet services, telephone services and IPTV, including TV on fibre. Right now, there are several RSPs - these include SingTel, StarHub, M1 and MyRepublic. Their fibre services were changed in March 2013. Installation